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Boarding
The Big Boarding Page Boarding and capturing ships : Boarding and taking over ships is a complex operation in Starpoint Gemini 2. It is considered basically a hostile act in any space, so do not expect any friendly reaction on anybody's part if you do it. It takes a lot of practice to get used to it, but it is highly profitable and you may own ships by it otherwise you would not be able to. : A few words before we dive into it: *Upon starting a new game, go to Vigo station, dock, save the game, undock and try to board a pirate gunship first. In civilian space nobody will care if you board a pirate ship. Near Vigo there is always a pirate or two who has no other wish than to be boarded by you or being killed by the police. *If you fail, reload the saved game *Try it a few times, at least until you are familiar with the whole mechanism. I know the police is very eager, but in the example below I was able to capture a pirate right away and it earned me a hefty 400k right then and there. *There are a few words about boarding by distinguished forum members at the bottom of this page, please read them, they are a big help to understand what it is all about. *Try to reduce the enemy trooper count as much as possible before boarding. If you have viral torpedoes, use them. Shoot the enemy ship and reduce its hull to about 20% before boarding; the trooper number won't reduce(!!!), but most of the internal defense systems will shut down, so your troopers may have a better chance (it always works for me). *Try to attack lone ships. It is a good idea to use a cloak capable ship to board: you can sneak up on unsuspecting victims, grapple them cloaked, shoot them, board, take over, grapple, cloak again and tow home cloaked. Boarding is one of the biggest fun in this game if you do it like a predator sneaking up on the prey. * Very important to know, that even if there are no enemy troopers left during your assault, there may still be active defense systems (they won't all shut down, when you shoot up the hull, but most of them will), also there is the crew aboard, which also puts up a fight. They are NOT counted as troopers so they are not indicated as such (like you and your officers on your ship), so even after your troopers mopped up all defender troopers, they still have to take the bridge, where the ship's captain and his/her crew won't wait them with flowers and a cup of tea. If you have only 3-4 troopers left after the enemy troopers are all gone, you will still most likely fail the boarding. In my experience you will need at least 8-10 troopers to take over the bridge, depending on the size of ship (the bigger the vessel, the more troopers you need for that). How to : : To capture ships, you need Troopers. You can send these Troopers on away missions, to attempt to capture enemy ships. Capturing ships is difficult and it is highly advised to first reduce target Trooper number as much as possible, before attempting capture. : It is also advised to grapple the target first. It may attempt to fly away before you finish boarding, so get inside grappler range (usually less than 500 units), target the ship, open up the context menu (middle mouse button by default), then hit the grappler activator (1). You can do this later via the boarding sub-menu, but I used to do grappling first (by this you can turn neutral ships hostile and then you are able to board them, without shooting even one round, this helps keep things calm around you). : : You may now send your troopers to board using your teleporter by opening up the context menu again, then hitting the "Boarding" button (2) just under the Grappler Activator. : : A small boarding(3) panel opens up on the right side of the screen, once boarding commences. This provides info on how boarding is progressing. You can also quickly lock on the ship being boarded by right-clicking on its boarding panel - in case you did not use the grappler above. : The boarding goes in cycles: your teleporter cannot send all your troopers at once, the number depends on your ship's basic ability, plus on the added enhancers (Locust III gives 50%) and officers aboard your ship - officers can also raise the strength (survivability) of your troopers. : So when you send them over, the first cycle goes on: you send 5-15 troopers first. On the boarding panel on the right (3) there are two buttons - a send button and a retreat. At the first cycle the send button is grey: you have to wait until your teleporter re-cycles to send reinforcements. : : When the green indicator goes right up, you may send reinforcements by clicking the green button on the boarding panel (4). It is advised to send as many as you can in as many cycles as possible: even if there are no more troopers on the enemy ship, it may still have some internal defenses plus the crew, of which you have no knowledge (they are not counted by the trooper number indicator), so sending every able body there is a good idea just in case. : Once the ship is captured, you can left-click on the boarding panel to grapple it. : When you capture a ship, it will “float dead” in space. You can then use the context menu again to choose what to do: *'Demolish' :: Immediately destroy the ship. *'Loot' :: This opens up the Loot panel where you can choose what Equipment, Commodities and Ship systems to take or leave on the captured ship. *'Grapple' :: Use this option to grapple the ship with your grappling beam. You can then drag the ship to a nearby station or planet and then choose what to do with it. You can either transfer your command to it or sell it for profit (any cargo, equipment or ship systems are sold with the ship, so looting it first is advised). Stories and advice from players About capture Originally posted by (Boo Crew) Cheshire Cat Steam discussion link : Don't forget that you are beaming troops into a hostile environment, against an enemy that is prepared for a boarding attempt. They have initial control of all on board systems, like security doors and whatnot. Even if you have bonuses to your troops, and more of them, they are at a disadvantage. : They would have to not only fight their way through the ship, they would also have to be hacking or cutting their way through the security doors and taking over the ships systems, dealing with automated/remote security systems, booby traps, and coming around corners into ambushes, hallways with enemy troops behind barricades at the far end of the hall, etc. : At least that's how I see the combat going on the enemy ship in my mind's eye. I'm also pretty sure that an equivalent level enemy can also have bonuses against boarding... so tho I understand your frustration at having issues capturing enemy ships with even a very strong attack, I can see how it would be reasonable that an overwhelming force would be required to take over a fully intact ship. Also imagine how many times the enemy has drilled to protect the ship they are on, vs. the number of simulations your troops went through to take over a ship that is even similar to theirs. Just thought I'd throw my ideas out there for everyone to consider when things go horribly wrong when trying to capture an enemy. Capturing mechanics Originally posted by Le Sabaoth Steam discussion link You are not really doing something wrong. You just don't put every chance in your favor. Let me explain. : 1) You fight with 9 troopers against 20 almost each time, so your troopers, even if they are a little bit doped, lose their ground. Answer : upgrade you transporter capacity (with officers, and for example the upgrade "locust") : 2) The enemy ship has defense systems along its troopers. Even if you dropped 21 troopers against 20, you would lose the fight. Answer : hit the enemy ship to destroy most of its hull, thus decreasing the number of enemy troopers and weakening the defense systems. : 3) Enemy ship's class determines the strength of its innate defenses. It'll be easier to capture a gunship with 20 troopers than a frigate with 20 troopers. : 4) Don't forget than in a boarding, the one attacking is always put at a disadvantage. Unless you have a ton of troopers and transporter upgrades and your ship is a way higher class vessel than the one you try to capture. Hope it helps ! Good luck, fellow captain =) PS : Viral torpedoes and hacking life support systems can help too. Increase numbers Originally posted by ThaddiusX Steam discussion link : Important things to note, upgrade transporters to send more troops each wave. More troops arrive, easier time they have. : Invest perk points in perk that gives bonus to troop strength. : Hire officers that give bonus to troops. With this you can take on targets a lot bigger than you. : There's also a skill for Engineers that will reduce enemy troop efficiency if activated, but it is profession specific. I must admit I did not see any clear result of using it, having mine at 14% at the moment, but it is there so I reckon it should work as intended. Capturing by an example Originally posted by Skyhaster: Steam discussion link Well, today i took over a Bohemia cargo ship with my Abeja in an unfriendly area called Needle system. 50 vs. theirs 52 and i made it with 12 of my soldiers left. What helped me was to take down the hull to a certain point, field commander perk full skilled and the Acros III and Watanabe III amplification for grappler and transporter. Suddenly i was surrounded by a lot of enemys and i needed to drag this ship and me out of heavy combat twoards my ship. No chance for afterburner -i would have lost the grappeled ship-. So all energy on the engines and my speed bonus activated through commander skills -control -speed buff and evasion, a little comsume of shieldboosters and maneuvers to evade. (engineer skills are better choice for conquering bonuses) It's imho better to be faster then your opponents to get out of their range then taking up shields and it allows you to reach and dock a station with no enemys around you (forbids the docking usually). The Bohemia is a great deal for me because it has a Space of 315 cargo. Now i can do some big trading runs or loot wrecks aso with higher amount of loot properly. I also managed to loot the ship before docking (nothing special there). A great moment when i arrived, i made a fist and screamed something like YESSS! This is what i really like about this game, it can get very intense, you have do make good decisions, need all your skill and if everything works out, it is such a satisfying and rewarding feeling afterwards.